You Can’t Kill the Rooster by David Sedaris
If you can’t find the full length version of the narrative, try listen to it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPCHSUkruo. The online text I found is not as long as the Youtube video, and it includes some funny scenes you may miss if you just read the online text version. Plus, there are two different endings; I like the Youtube version better.
The narrator begins his story by moving from New York State to North Carolina. He could not have made a bigger transition, and this juxtaposition is further emphasized by explaining the humorous differences between his family and his brother who was born post-the move.
Paul is a feisty foil to the other characters in Sedaris’ family. Paul is “The Rooster” whose main vocabulary includes the various forms of fuck. Paul is clearly different than the rest of his family and seems to have been raised in a “different household.”
At first, due to Paul’s vulgar nature, I viewed him as a static character—merely there for humor; yet, Paul has a heart. He is the only one who visits his widowed father for Thanksgiving, and came to see him when there was a hurricane.
I was surprised to be emotionally moved by the end of the story. Beneath its abundance of “motherfuckers,” “bitch,” ect… Sedaris is telling us something more than a funny family history. He’s giving us a fun-house mirror that reflects a hint of sentimentality.
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